Artwork at Lough Mask in Mayo unveiled during Biodiversity Week

A new art piece graces Lough Mask with its presence: The mosaic was unveiled at the Robert Shaw Memorial at Lough Mask by Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council Cllr Michael Loftus (Fianna Fail). A film and booklet were launched thereafter in Tourmakeady Community Centre.  The film will be available to view online in the coming weeks.  

Lough Mask is one of Ireland’s Blue Dots and also one of the remaining places that the native and rare Arctic Char remains. Blue Dots are high status objective waterbodies and there are 48 of these in County Mayo. When achieving this target, they have the highest ecological quality of all our waters and often a greater diversity of species that are sensitive to pollution.

Speaking after the launch, Dr Bernadette White, Blue Dot Catchments Programme Manager at the Local Authority Waters Programme said: “We are very happy to have launched the Mayo Blue Dots mosaic, booklet and film to celebrate Mayo’s high-status objective waters. Lough Mask is iconic for Arctic Char and has one of the few populations left in Ireland of these species that date back to glacial times. It is important to mark these special waters that exist in Ireland and the diverse biodiversity they host.”

In recent decades, Ireland has seen a concerning decline in its high-quality waters, impacting sensitive aquatic species like salmon, trout, and freshwater pearl mussels. Ireland’s River Basin Management Plan prioritises safeguarding these waters, setting a high status water quality target for a network of sites around the country known as the Blue Dots. The percentage of high-quality sites dropped from 31.6% in 1987-1990 to 18.4% in 2019-2021, with Q5 sites, reflecting near natural conditions, plummeting to just 1.1%. Initiatives like the Blue Dot Catchments Programme (Blue Dot Programme - Local Authority Water Programme (lawaters.ie)) and Waters of Life Integrated Project (Waters of LIFE - Waters of Life) aim to reverse these trends.